It’s been two years since the release of Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood and I finally finished it. But that’s the beauty of Backlogged Reviews, it’s our chance to look back at titles we never finished or never got around to playing. It’s like the fact that today marks a year since Skyrim and I’ve yet to touch the game. Guess that will change, but first to get to my review on AC: Brotherhood.

Gameplay

The third entry into the Assassin’s Creed Series find us continuing the story of Ezio Auditore da Firenze from AC 2. This time you can bring a little crew with you as the main mechanic behind AC: Brotherhood is training fellow assassins and helping out fellow guilds. Many of these elements work wonderfully once you figure it out, unfortunately I didn’t use assassins to my advantage until I was almost finished with the story.

Another knock is to the control scheme that has continued to plague the Assassin’s Creed Series. From time-to-time you’ll find yourself randomly missing a spot to climb and falling, jumping off of a platform sideways, or simply doing everything you don’t want to do. Sometimes this cost you Ezio’s life. Sometimes it gets you stuck in this aggravating situation where you’re trying to climb but just can’t get it done.

New Synchronization %’s are a part of every mission now. Each time you accept a mission you’ll be given a stipulation to gain 100% Synchronization. This could range from things such as not getting caught, not losing more than 2 health squares, or only using a certain weapon to kill someone. Most of these are fairly easy and the one’s that require you to beat a mission in a certain time can be repeated after you’ve figured out what you’re doing.

Graphics

By far the best graphics in the series at the time, AC: Brotherhood suffers from little pop-in and has a wonderful draw distance on consoles. Colors are still a bit dark though, as you’ll notice a bit of a brown filter over everything. This doesn’t take away from the game as it keeps an antique look to it.

Story

AC: Brotherhood is full of more and more twists and turns. However the story is pretty similar to previous entries. You’ll still find yourself trying to figure out clues as to why things are going on between the Templars and Assassins. Unfortunately the game still plagues you with doing pointless missions to figure things out. However your main goal is to free Rome of the corruption that is the Borgia. You’ll deal with encounters at the Vatican, you’ll look to kill Cardinals, and overall seem to have an issue with the Catholic religion’s corruption of the government.

To be honest, most of the story seems unimportant and leaves you wanting more until you hit the final few missions. That’s when things take off and you’re thrown back into modern day dealt with finding something you left behind in the past. The story takes an epic twist here, which is sure to make you want to continue Ezio story into Assassin’s Creed Revelations.

Final Thoughts

AC: Brotherhood feels like a half baked sequel to AC 2. Unfortunately it wasn’t worth the full price of admission at the time. AC 2 kept me hooked, and I couldn’t put the controller down. AC: Brotherhood left me feeling empty and in the need of a bigger story with more connection to the player. Ezio is cool, but his witty attitude sometimes leaves me crazing a silent assassin. While it’s still a fantastic game with little issues and not a lot of technical flaws, the story is missing the same flavor that it graced previous titles in the series. AC: Brotherhood tries to be an open world game with a story that is extremely slow in developing. AC: Brotherhood get’s a 7.2 out of 10.

Every now and then a racing game catches mainstream attention, and usually those games are original and exciting. As I’ve written before most simulation racers are boring, lack identity, and fail to give a purpose when you race. Forza Horizon does everything it can to make up for those faults while keeping its simulation roots.

Game/Story

In Forza Horizon you start out as a no-named young buck trying to make his way into the Horizon Festival. Luckily they don’t bore you with the details up front since they throw you straight into a race that leads you straight into the festival. Here you are welcomed and take a look at your new car, which trust me, you’ll want to get rid of it as soon as you can or at least upgrade it.

From here you can cruise about Colorado looking for barn finds, racing random festival opponents, going to other events, or just driving like a maniac hitting speed traps and doing wicked power slide. Also enjoy looking for upgrade signs and doing PR stunts for Fast Travel discounts. Because you can do all of these, the open-world allows it, and you’ll always have something to keep you busy.

Luckily the music options are good as well, however they do tend to repeat themselves a lot and you’ll easily get annoyed if you don’t like dubstep. From Skrillex to Neon Trees the options are a plenty, but luckily the music seems to go with the game and keeps you immersed in the action.

Forza Horizon stays tight with its roots while adding an arcade style to it. Each car handles differently and the same physics as Forza 4 are in the game. There’s two methods of racing too, you can alter it for the hardcore racer or make it for the beginner. Between the Simulation and Normal steering modes, anyone can handle an overpowered race car. Other options like Traction Control, Racing Line, Break Assist, and opponent difficulty allows you to adjust the game to your liking.

One gripe I have about Forza Horizon is the inability to tune your car. While I understand that they surely removed this so that the average race fan wouldn’t have to deal with tuning their cars, it would have been a nice feature for someone who really wanted to race at a more hardcore level.

Replayability

Forza Horizon looks to have some long-term stay, however with the slew of racing games coming out this Holiday Season it might be tough. Monthly Rivals, Leader board Rivals, and the ability to tune, upgrade, and complete challenges gives you plenty to do. Add this to a deep multiplayer that has races, free roam challenges, infected, cat and mouse, and king modes, Forza Horizon gives you enough to keep busy.

Unfortunately most of the races in Forza Horizon will seem fairly easy on normal if you’re a seasoned racer and the jump to Hard or Insane should be enough of a challenge for you. Once you’ve raced everything on Insane though, you’ll run out of things to do. Hopefully the coming DLC packs will keep you occupied.

Graphics

A lot of people are saying Forza Horizon is beautiful, and that it is, but it isn’t the prettiest environment I’ve seen in a racing game. Most of the graphics seem to have a bit of a filter on them creating a blur. This was probably done to keep the environment smooth while going 180 mph down the highway.

Cars are extremely detailed, and the option to look around the inside of the car is still there, but the detail isn’t as good as it was in Forza 4. Again, little details for car enthusiast are missing, but the overall package is solid.

Overall though, Forza Horizon stands out in every aspect. From the graphics, the gameplay, and the sound. Everything is done wonderfully and exciting. Forza Horizon is one of the standout titles of 2012. Even if you aren’t a fan of racing games, you’ll find quality entertainment in it. I should point out that leveling is fairly quick, as is earning credits, however I think this is a good idea for an arcade racer since it tries to keep non-gamers interested. With all of this in mind, I suggest you go out and buy Forza Horizon as it is an early favorite of my Holiday Must-Buy’s. Forza Horizon gets a 9.5 out of 10 (Excellent).

I am by no means an avid fan of Angry Birds, and in fact, I rarely ever play it on my phone or IOS device. I did, however, have want to try it out on the Kinect as I had heard wonderful things about it.

Yep, just as you’re thinking right now….they lied to me. Angry Birds Trilogy is in no way meant to be played with Kinect, and the tag line “Better With Kinect” continues its trend of being wrong. Nothing has been better with Kinect that has had that slogan. But that’s not what the review is about, Angry Birds Trilogy isn’t a bad game with Kinect but the Kinect remains the fatal flaw. Too often my motions were misunderstood and I was forced shooting a bird to a spot I didn’t want or I wasn’t getting enough power behind it. This takes away from the enjoyment that I could have playing the game, and it forced me to go back to the old fashioned controller method. Although I wanted to play with the Kinect, the game excels with the controller.

Accurate launches, the ability to zoom in and out, and the ease of control come out with the controller. While the game still wants you to use the Kinect, the controller setup is fantastic and the only real way to play. Launching birds is as simple as pulling the left stick to aim and pressing A to launch. The Left Trigger allows you to zoom out and moving around is done by using the Right Stick. It’s very simple and is done right as I had little difficulty with the control scheme.

Gameplay

Angry Birds Trilogy has the same gameplay as the mobile version of the games. The disc features Angry Birds Classic, Angry Birds Rio, and Angry Birds Seasons. Each offers you a slight different style of gameplay. There isn’t much to say to those who’ve played Angry Birds before, however, to those who haven’t it’s a simple game of launch your bird to try and hit all of the pigs and rack up as many points as you can to get stars and unlock more episodes.

In terms of scoring, it appears that scoring has been made slightly harder than the mobile versions. Scores that were gaining 3-stars on the mobile version would be lucky to hit 2-stars on Angry Birds Trilogy. As someone who hadn’t played a lot of the mobile version I didn’t immediately notice it, but someone who had played Angry Birds quite a bit was quick to notice it. This causes much more difficulty to advance in the game, however it does increase the amount of play time and replayability in the game.

Final Thoughts

Overall Angry Birds Trilogy is a lot of fun. It’s a perfect translation from mobile platform to home consoles. Levels look the same, graphics are the same HD graphics as found on the iPad version and look wonderful on a 51″ Plasma. The game is everything fans of the originals will remember and is a wonderful collection for fans. However, people who are on the fence about Angry Birds, or never fell in love with the mobile versions should steer clear. Everything that is wonderful about the mobile version like the ability to play a level here and there are lost in the disc based version. Sure you can play a level or two at a time, but the point of putting a disc in the drive to play isn’t to do that. Angry Birds Trilogy would have served far better as a downloadable title on these platforms and came at a far lower price. $40 for a glorified mobile game is a lot to ask. While there are nice additions such as art, music, and other tidbits for fans, the asking price is too high for only average fans. Angry Birds Trilogy is fanfare at its finest.